Curses and Blessings
by Thesseli
Summary: A Gilnean rejoins Azeroth society, and reflects on the nature of his 'curse'.


The first time Calandris ever saw a night elf, he stared. He couldn't help it.

Gilneas had been cut off from the rest of Azeroth for a long time, so long in fact that Cal never thought he would meet any of the other races with whom humanity shared this world. He'd heard descriptions of them, of course, but he never believed he'd actually see one, not until he met the group of elves who'd come to help his people through their curse. They were the ones who gave him back his human form, and even more importantly, his control. Cal had decided that his first sight of the night elves back then was probably the most important event of his life…more important, and ultimately more welcome, than even seeing King Genn Greymane at his side when he woke from his madness in the stocks at Duskhaven.

Calandris was pleased to say that since then he'd become much more cosmopolitan. After his mage training in Stormwind and his visits to other parts of the world, he was less likely to be awestruck by new and exotic sights…but even now, years later, there were times when he would still feel that same sense of wonder. It always happened whenever he met a member of any new intelligent species. Part of it had to do with how different these other people looked. (To be fair, though, his first look in a mirror after being afflicted by the worgen curse had shocked him nearly to unconsciousness). But not all of those people had the same effect on him. Dwarves and gnomes weren't human, of course, but they were similar to humans in many ways. Goblins, trolls, and especially Pandarens had been a bigger surprise, and he was sure his first look at the demon-like draenei had actually caused his jaw to drop.

But none of these affected him in the same way as his first encounter with a blood elf. And it had nothing to do with how they looked.

Calandris may have been Gilnean, but he'd been back in Alliance society long enough to have heard all about how the high elves had been decimated and the Sunwell destroyed, and how they'd then turned to demonic magics to feed their addiction to mana. They'd done things the Alliance considered intolerable – but the elves claimed it was the only way to save their race from extinction. Cal had no way of knowing if anything else could have prevented it, but he knew he wasn't in a place to judge them. The resulting blood elves had been named traitors by the Alliance and abandoned to their fate.

Calandris knew very well that the same thing could have happened to his people.

That thought was an extremely uncomfortable one, but Cal knew it had been a possibility. Gilneas had been a human kingdom, yes, but they had also severed ties with the Alliance many years before. They'd refused to send help to Lordaeron when it was beset by the plague of undeath...so perhaps it was their fate that Gilneas had initially been alone in its hour of need. That, plus the worgen curse, probably would have been enough to convince the Alliance that Gilneas wasn't worth their help anymore. His people had done things many in the Alliance considered just as intolerable as the blood elves' actions, and most had nothing to do with becoming worgen. It was only through the actions of the night elves that his people had been brought back into the fold…they never would have been accepted on their own, assuming they could have even survived the curse without the night elves' help. And even if they had, if it wasn't for the night elves, the Gilneans might have ended up in the Horde as well. Just like the blood elves.

Cal shuddered. The orcs ruled the Horde, and they were brutish and violent, even without the blood of Mannoroth corrupting them. Even the less aggressive races like the tauren and goblins couldn't make up for that. He breathed a silent prayer of thanks that the Alliance had accepted the Gilneans back into its ranks. It was hard enough to deal with the curse as it was, without his people potentially being used as killing machines for the Horde.

A killing machine. A feral killing machine. That's what Calandris had been for the weeks or months after he'd succumbed to the bite he'd received before the Forsaken invaded. It shamed him. He'd been unable to defend himself, and he'd paid the consequences. That the vast majority of Gilneans who'd escaped with the night elves also bore the curse was of little comfort. Neither was the fact that Genn Greymane had also been one of its victims. Calandris had been shocked to learn that Genn had been bitten years before, and it had only been through Krennan Aranas's alchemy that he'd been able to maintain his human form. /And his mind./ Cal hadn't; not until he'd been captured and the potions that effected a partial cure had been forced down his throat. He hadn't realized it at the time, but Genn's admission that he knew what Calandris was going through meant that he struggled with the same part of himself Cal struggled with once his mind had been returned to him. Oh, the king's infection had been paused very early in the process, but it was still present. Calandris supposed that if Krennan's partial cure was administered before the physical changes began, the curse couldn't be transmitted. That was likely the reason that Queen Mia was still fully human. /Or was she?/ He didn't know, and he certainly wasn't going to ask. The curse spread like a virus, through the saliva of the infected. Cal had been terrified once he'd realized that even now, even in full control of himself, he could continue to spread it to any human he might get close to, any human he might be intimate with.

The mage closed his eyes. Any human...all it would take would be a small break in the skin. Something so small it might not even be visible. Just a scratch, just something to let the poison in.

He sighed. It wasn't poison. It wasn't a disease. It was an affliction, of sorts, but it wasn't an illness. When he'd come to his senses after being dosed with Krennan's potions, he'd realized with a start that he'd never felt better in his life. He was stronger, faster, and more agile than he'd ever been. It was his curse that had kept him alive through the Forsaken siege and the cataclysmic storms on the way to Darnassus.

There was a knock at his door. "Cal?" the voice of the draenei paladin called from the corridor. "There has been a break in the case. Lord Stoutheart requires our presence in the planning room."

"I'll be right there," he replied, gathering up his notes. He met the paladin in the hallway and smiled at her…one of his oldest friends since his people had re-entered Azeroth's greater society. The two had met in Stormwind - both newcomers to the city, both refugees driven from their homelands, and both welcomed by the Alliance. His own situation didn't seem so bad now, not since he'd learned that others had been through their own tragedies…and that they'd not only made it through, but come out stronger.

As Genn Greymane often said, 'Our curse is also our blessing.' Sometimes Cal had a hard time seeing it that way, but in this moment, he did. He was neither a pawn of demons, blinded by rage as the orcs had been, nor an addict desperate for his next fix like the blood elves. He was a Gilnean - neither human nor beast, and a mage in the service of both his own people and the Alliance. He was a valued member of this new and larger society, and he valued that society just as much as he'd ever valued Gilneas.

He might not have been what he'd started out as, or what he'd ever thought he would be, but right now, it was enough.


End file.
